


Her Other Other Other Brother

by TrashDoveStuff_Liv



Category: Victorious (TV)
Genre: Cinnamon Roll Cat Valenite, Eating Disorders, Female Friendship, Gen, Mentions of addiction, Mentions of past suicide, Middle School, Pre-Cannon, Sunshine Baby, guys Cat needs 1 friend and so does Jade even though she totally actually doesn't (she does), mentions of intellectual disorders, mentions of mental health
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 11:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30138558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashDoveStuff_Liv/pseuds/TrashDoveStuff_Liv
Summary: Cat enters eighth grade with a backpack full of loose papers and about as much optimism as always. Ideally, she'd like to make a friend, but she's ready to go with whatever the universe throws at her, and when she sees a girl hiding away in the shadows, she's too lonely and too excited to ignore it. Besides, that girl looks just like her brother!This is going to show some of Cat's family life through flashbacks (kindof) and present stress, as well as following how Cat and Jade became friends.
Relationships: Beck Oliver/Jade West, Cat Valentine/Jade West (Friendship)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Her Other Other Other Brother

**Author's Note:**

> Hey!  
> First, if you haven't read chapter 30 of "You didn't have a happy childhood" and you want to, I would recommend reading that first. If you're not reading my other fic, you don't have to in order to follow along here. I started writing this as a side project during the summer, and it was supposed to be a oneshot but I just had so much fun writing it! Hope you enjoy!

The birds start chirping right on time. Or not on time. It’s possible that they’ve been sleeping in the past three days, or waking up early. I don’t know about birds, maybe they don’t keep a schedule like that. Not everyone does, I don’t. If I did, maybe I would still be sleeping like I’m supposed to, but the sky is pretty when it’s all pale like this in the early morning and the birds are chirping on time or not. Besides, if I was still asleep, I wouldn’t have enough time to get happy, and then today would be a mess.

I push my face against the screen of my window to feel the fresh air since the wind isn’t blowing. One of the birds is nesting close, I think because I can hear him louder than the others. It would be fun to be a bird. I chirp with him for a little and laugh. Silly. And today can’t be a mess because it’s my last first day of middle school. It’s different from my first last day of middle school two years ago, but it’s kind of the same, uses a lot of the same words.

I wonder if it’s still too late to switch schools. Then I could have my last first day and my first last day all in one year-

Well, school year; not calendar year. Why is that?-

And maybe then I could make friends. But it was too late to change last night, and it’s probably still too late this morning. Dangit. 

Sometimes, when I’m lonely I remember what David said before he went to prison the first time. He said he was worried about making the wrong friends in there. Which I understand because I worry about making any friends anywhere, wrong or not! We spoke on the phone twice a week and he had sleepovers every night with the same man in his cell. 

When David came back he was meaner than he used to be. And he kept starting fights with Jacob, sometimes even Leo which isn’t fair. Then he went to Japan for a year and we didn’t talk at all, so I don’t know if he had a roommate there or not. Maybe. 

I want a roommate. But not like, in prison, or in Japan. Actually maybe Japan! But, I mean when I grow up. Because then we can have bunk beds and stay up all night talking and drink strawberry milkshakes and...maybe I just want a friend. 

He lived on his own for a bit, but with a bird in an apartment in The Valley. It was just one room, and it always smelled like skunks so we didn't visit very often. Once, when I did visit, he and Jacob smoked cigarettes and made jokes about dad.

Only, afterwards, when they were joking, David said they weren’t cigarettes. Which means they were drugs! I know a few kids my age that do drugs, even though you really shouldn’t because of all the assemblies we have about it, but I guess they still don’t know. 

I never thought my brothers would smoke, and I didn’t know if I should tell mom or not. Jacob said not to, so it’s been two years and I still haven’t said anything. 

And now it’s breakfast! Which is easy now there’s only three of us in the house. Jacob only eats smoothies with way too much protein powder. I’ll eat anything, but I only really like Bagels or Fruity Pebbles.

And Leo only eats buttered toast. Only when it’s just turned tan. Only when it’s cut in half. Only when it’s diagonal cuts. Only when it’s Wonder Bread. Only when he or mom makes it.

Only at 7:15.

It was harder when David and Peter still ate with us. Cause there wasn’t as much room and David ate everything in sight and-

-Actually, it works out that we have breakfast at 7:15 because that’s just enough time before Jacob and I need to leave for school! 

He plays music the whole time and lets me sing along as loud as I can. Singing quiets my brain for a little, and Jacob knows that. He doesn’t make fun of how loud it is, or how it’s mostly my CD’s from Hairspray. Okay, because there’s this song in it, right? And she’s saying “good morning” to everyone, and the whole city- which is somewhere in America but I’ve never been there because it’s from the ’60s. 

And the song goes like, dun dun dun duuun dun dun, but with words. 

And it’s good that singing quiets my brain because now I don’t have to worry about my last first day of middle school. The downside is I’m not paying attention to the time, and before I can start thinking about how I’m going to make friends, we’re pulling up to the drop off zone.

“Go get ‘em!” Jacob’s always encouraging me like that, and usually I like it, but-.

‘Em’? What’s ‘em’. M is a letter, but he probably doesn’t mean- OH! Them!

Them who? Or them what? People? Things? Ideas? Colours? How can you ‘go get’ colours? I mean; sometimes when I hear a song, I know it’s pink, and sometimes I hear a car and it’s green, but that’s not the same as ‘getting’ colours- maybe more like hearing them? 

“Go get…..what?” 

Jacob smiles and laughs, “Just have a good day, Cat. See you later!” 

I stretch out my goodbye as his car pulls away, still waving even though he’s gone. I can hear some people laughing, so I start to laugh too. Everyone likes to laugh! 

The yard is already full of other kids. Groups I remember from first grade still. Good for them. Some of them are new groups from the summer or from last year. Everyone seems so happy and now is the time to try again. 

Megan was nice to me in class last year. She’s standing with Hayley and Ivey, who’s mean to me, and I can see I’m wearing Ivey’s shoes. Not her actual shoes though, just the same kind. But Greg is closer to me so I start with him.

Then Liam. 

Then Connie. 

Then Zack. 

Jesse. Elena. Isabelle. Heather. Thomas. Jasmine. Natalie. Girl Morgan. Boy Morgan. Kyle. Sammy. 

It’s okay that not everyone wants to be friends. They all have their own little groups. They’re all doing their own little things and that’s fine. 

Even if it’s sad. 

Megan! 

I don’t usually remember to do things once I get distracted, but she’s still there with Hayley and Ivey who is still wearing my shoes. Not my actual shoes, just the same kind. 

But then, Megan pretends like we weren’t friends in class last year. 

“You actually talked to that?” Hayley laughs. 

“Aren’t you worried you’ll catch freak disease?” I wish Ivey was wearing different shoes. Or that I was wearing different shoes. 

“I’m not sick,” and I stick my tongue out to show that it’s not swollen or anything. “See?” but they just laugh.

“See, her brother’s contagious. Freak runs in the family.” I guess it doesn’t mean anything that we’re wearing the same shoes. 

When people say freak, they’re talking about Leo. But it doesn’t hurt my feelings. They just don’t know him. It’s sad though, that Megan doesn’t want to be friends, and I walk away feeling grey instead of pink. 

So I wonder if our solar system has more than nine planets.

Or more than twenty planets! Other people don’t really like it when I say things like that out loud. Sometimes thinking is better than talking. Dad never tells me to stop thinking. He doesn’t tell me that I should think less. But he does not like talking. 

He’s never been mean about it. But I got tired of him teasing me. I never told him it hurt my feelings. 

Jacob is usually too busy to talk. He has a lot of friends and it’s his last year of high school. If everything goes the way he wants, he’ll have a scholarship to play for Ohio State. He can’t wait to get out of here. I’m so excited for him. 

Mom is too tired. She always says she’s like too little butter on too much toast. Well, she doesn’t say it like that, but “spread too thin” doesn’t make any sense at all. 

Right, because at first, I thought she meant she’d lost too much weight. Then I got worried she was sick, and four days later my teacher had to call home because I thought she was dying. 

But really what she meant was that she was too little butter on too much toast 

So I try not to bother her with wondering about planets and oceans and unicorns-which might be like giraffes in the sense that I’ve never seen one. 

When I stay home, if I can’t play with Leo or if Jacob is busy with his friends, I just stay in my room and listen to music. Colour. Dance. 

Music is good, so I put my earbuds in now and listen to some. A song with lots of piano and pink chords, which is good because after being grey, well, I wanna be pink. You know? 

I like pink. I don’t care that people think it’s weird. 

Peter didn’t think it was weird. It made him smile, even when nothing else did. He was my favourite. I wish I could tell him that. He would have listened. I was his favourite. Because David was in college since he hadn’t gone to prison yet, and Jacob was always busy at his friends’ houses, and we were still learning about Leo; so that left me. He used to let me stay in his and David’s room for sleepovers if I had a grey dream, and he never told me to stop talking. He was the first to tell me I could sing, and even when he was mad at everyone else, he still let me in to hang out. He’d play his music, and I’d tell him the world was pink, and instead of calling me stupid or laughing he’d just say “if you say so”. 

It’s a really nice day today. It’s not quite as hot as always, like, I think it could maybe rain. It doesn’t rain enough here. Peter said that once. I asked him about when it was going to rain next, and he said not for a while. 

“Well, what does THAT mean?”  
“Just,” he sighed, “that it doesn’t rain here that much as other places. Look, you’ll learn all about it in like sixth grade.”

“Promise?”

“What?”

“That I’ll learn about it in sixth grade?”

“Sure, yeah. Promise,” he was watching the tv in the cage in his room where he was tied to the bed. The doctors said he had to stay like that until he was safe because he used to scratch his arms and they were worried he’d pull at the stitches. 

I wasn’t allowed to see him on the first day in the hospital. Or the second or the fourth. But on the fifth day, dad said I could visit him and we watched T.V and he even smiled when I laughed at Mona Patterson. 

He lied though. We didn’t learn about rain in sixth grade, we learned about it in fifth grade and he was already dead.

So it probably won’t rain today. But the air is nice. 

He was out of the hospital really fast. Dad didn’t want to keep him there. But when he came home, Peter never left his room. He still let me come in, no one else. He tried to smile if I danced and he let me talk about everything I wanted to. He never thought it was stupid to wonder if there were more than nine planets. Or more than 20. 

Dad’s still mad at him.

I still visit him, sometimes. It’s not far to walk to. And I can see everyone walking their dogs! But they don’t walk their dogs in the graveyard, because I think the ghosts would scare them. 

Some places have more dogs than people. 

But most places don’t.

Even though my name is Caterina and people call me Cat, I really like dogs. 

And I get to meet new people when I ask about their dogs! New people are good most of the time, except when they’re mean strangers, but it’s hard to tell the difference sometimes. Because all people are new until they’re not, and all people are strangers until they’re friends.

And that’s another good thing about first days of school! Whether they’re your last first days or your first first days, there’s always someone new who won’t be a stranger forever. 

Someone who could use some help, maybe, finding a room or looking for a teacher. There’s a few I notice and right away can tell I’ve never seen them before. Sometimes I see people and I feel like I’ve seen them before but I know I haven’t. There’s a girl heading over to Ivy. I hope it works out for her. There’s a boy that’s new, and really cute, he’s already playing soccer in the yard. There are a few others that look nice, one of the boys has a pink backpack, and maybe we could talk about that. 

But it’s the best song right now, so I can’t go until it’s finished. Because, it goes like dun dun dun dun dun dun, and I really like that, so maybe I can talk to him when it’s done.

Sometimes, people roll their eyes at me when I dance, or they laugh. But there are more interesting things to think about, like how people know so many dog breeds and so few cat breeds. Or how cats always land on their feet, how does that happen? Even though my name is Cat and I love dogs, I also love cats. 

Another new kid! Against the wall, almost blended in completely. She’s done a pretty good job of not being noticed. Because, I was going to go see the boy in the pink backpack instead, and maybe if I wasn’t still waiting for my song to finish, I wouldn’t have seen her at all. 

But something about the way she’s sitting, all curled up like she’s been kicked. She’s looking around a bit, but not really. It all feels familiar, and I know what it is!

Peter used to sit like that. 

Skipping is pretty efficient, and twice as fun. That’s why I skip still, but I know to slow down before actually going up to anyone. She’s scratching away at a notebook. Maybe she’s an artist! Wouldn’t that be nice? I’ve never really met someone who was creative. I think it’d be nice. 

“You’re new, right?” It’s a safe way to start a conversation. 

She glares at me but doesn’t say anything before she starts drawing again. “You’re observant”

“Hahah, yeah…” she’s not very talkative. She’s not very friendly. “What’s your name?” 

She doesn’t look up again. Something about her makes me want to cry, “Jade.”

“That’s a pretty name!” People like compliments. Except sometimes I think people are complimenting me and later it turns out they were making fun of me. You never really know. But, maybe she likes compliments. 

“Thanks.” 

Her voice is completely flat, and I don’t know if she really means ‘thanks’ even though she said it. Maybe I made a mistake, and she’d rather I go away. 

But I can’t find the boy in the pink backpack, and I can’t give up yet because “Can I sit.”

“Whatever.” 

That was Peter’s favourite word. He said it all the time. Everything was “whatever”. I slide down to sit next to her against the wall. “I’m Cat!” but she doesn’t say anything about it, so I start humming. 

There’s this song, right? And it keeps playing in my head, but I don’t know what it is, so I keep humming the course. Eventually I’ll remember it, maybe. 

It takes me a sec before I remember that not everyone likes humming. But I can tell by looking that Jade doesn’t mind. She’s really invested in her drawing. 

“Whatcha drawing?” Maybe she’s drawing a bird! I saw a bird this morning, well, I heard one anyway. I couldn’t see it. 

“None of your business.” 

“Okay,” Some people keep secrets. I can’t, sometimes I don’t know if I’m thinking or speaking, so I tell so many secrets! Except for the time when Jacob and David did drugs, but that’s different because I think if dad knew David was doing drugs again (still?) he’d get really mad and start yelling. 

But it bothers me that I don’t know what she’s drawing. What if it’s good? What if it’s a puppy! So I stretch my neck and try to see, but she pulls away the paper before I get a chance to look at it. Dangit. 

This is why I don’t have friends yet. 

I used to be friends with Kelly, but she stopped talking to me when I told her about the time David got stabbed in Japan. Thought I was lying. 

I used to be friends with Connie, but she got annoyed when I kept asking questions about colours and music and animals and space and the ocean and grass and the planet and the moon and numbers and spelling and..

And I used to be friends with Ivey, too, but she stopped liking me. 

I could have been friends with Jade, but then I looked at her book even when she told me not to. 

The boy with the pink backpack is still by himself, and maybe when Jade tells me to leave I can go try to be his friend. So when Jacob asks me later, if I made any friends, I can tell him I really really tried my best.  
.  
But Jade doesn’t tell me to leave.

And I know that doesn’t mean she wants me to stay, but it DOES mean she doesn’t care if I do. So I stay, and I think maybe 

She isn’t in my morning classes. Dangit. 

There are other kids, but most of them don’t talk to me. It’s okay, the first day of school is always a little weird because everything is new. Even if the people are the same people since kindergarten, they’re still new. In this combination, in this classroom, with this teacher, in these clothes. I’ve known all of them for years, but still, this is all so new! We’ve never been all together like this before. 

I don’t know why people give up on life when there’s always so many new things happening. What if tomorrow is the day where everything changes? 

Peter gave up. He’d been so angry and so hurt for so long. The stain in his carpet is gone now, but I remember it. 

He died a month after coming home from the hospital. Usually, he’d be in his bedroom, listening to his music so loud that it bothered Leo and made Dad yell at him. He’d yell back. 

Sometimes, I’d hide under my bed or join Jacob in his room for a little bit. I remember once, Peter stole a bunch of dad’s beer and then there was this big fight and so much screaming, and I hid under my bed alone. Mom had to stay with Peter so dad wouldn’t hurt him, Jacob had to stay with Leo so he wouldn’t hurt himself, and I had to stay alone because David was in college. 

Peter didn’t think anything was going to change. 

I could tell it was going to happen, but dad didn’t think so. He told me that Peter was just acting out, that I should stop giving him attention, that if I spent too much time with him, I’d end up that way. 

But maybe if I’d spent more time with him, I could have shown him so many new things. And maybe one of those new things would have convinced him to stay. Maybe there could have been a day where everything changed! And he wouldn’t have given up. 

His letter is addressed to me, I found it on the floor beside his body. But I called for help before I opened it. He wasn’t breathing, there was vomit everywhere. 

Mom took the letter after the ambulance took Peter away in a bag. She said I could read it when I’m older. 

I’m older now, but I still haven’t read it, and mom doesn’t talk about him anymore. 

When I was littler, he used to draw treasure maps for me. And even if he was really mad at the rest of the world, he’d smile while we went around the house to look for one of my toys. He didn’t know I knew it was all pretend. Maybe he did. He still told me they were maps he’d found in books or under his bed. 

His letter probably isn’t a treasure map. But it would be cool if it was. 

Maybe Jade likes treasure hunts.

She doesn’t look like she likes anything right now. Maybe she just needs to see something new! Maybe today is the day that everything changes! 

Lunchtime. That was fast. 

My page is full of doodles. There’s a giraffe in the margin and a whale in the middle. Silly. I don’t remember drawing them. 

She’s hiding in the corner of the cafeteria. At a table by herself. She’s still scribbling away in that notebook, and she doesn’t have a lunch tray or anything. I can tell, she wishes her whole world was just her and that book. She’s either a very dedicated artist or a very angry person. Or both! 

“Hey, Jade!” 

The look she gives me might scare anyone else. But she doesn’t say anything, and I can tell that she needs a friend other than a notebook. If she wants me to go, she can tell me to leave. 

“Hey,” her tone is unfriendly, and she goes back to her drawing. Or maybe she’s writing. 

“What’s your schedule after lunch? Maybe we’ll have a class together?” Maybe if she’s sitting next to me I’ll have someone to talk to. Maybe then, I won’t think about Peter as much. 

“Maybe.”

I can tell she’s annoyed, so I start eating my lunch. It’s pizza today! 

I wonder if there’s an easier way to eat food sometimes, because maybe then Peter wouldn’t have skipped meals, and maybe Jade, dedicated artist or just angry, would be eating right now. Like a juice maybe? Or like astronauts who go into space and have all their food freeze-dried. Maybe that doesn’t make it easier to eat, but one time, Peter bought me freeze-dried ice cream at the planetarium and it was really good. 

He and I used to go all the time. It’s cool because they talk all about the stars and everything we know about the universe. But then there are so many things we don’t know. Like, can whales talk and they’re just good at keeping it a secret? Or how many stars are there really? They say there are more stars than there are grains of sand on every beach in the whole world, but how much is that? 

Earth rotates, so we know what it looks like on all sides. But the moon doesn’t, we always see the same side, all the time. Not enough people seem to be worried about that. “Do you think the moon looks different on the other side?”

Oops. That was out loud.

She looks up at me, a little surprised. I hope she doesn’t make fun of me for it. She presses her lips together and squints, but as she looks back down at her book she says “probably,” and she chuckles once. It’s more of an exhale than a real laugh, but it’s new. 

“Because, well, in different parts of the world the moon is bright, but not here. It’s hard to see sometimes.”

“Not always” she doesn’t look up from her notebook. 

We spend recess together, but she’s still just drawing in her notebook. I try to peek, but she keeps nudging it away. 

She sighs, and flips to a blank page and draws a sharp sign #, like for music, and draws an X in the bottom right corner. 

She wins the first 14 games of tic tac toe, and then its time to go back to class. 

I don’t see her for the rest of the day. 

***  
The birds are early this morning. Or they were late yesterday. Hard to tell, but they wouldn’t make for a very good alarm clock. I wonder if I’ll see Jade today. Maybe I’ll win our 15th game of tic tac toe. 

But she really likes winning. 

It’s my last second day of middle school! That’s gotta count for something, maybe I should have thought to make brownies. This one time, David and I made brownies for a bake sale, and they were really good. He said the secret is to add rainbow chips. He’s the best cook and he gives me the most advice.

That was before he went to jail, the first time. Maybe he needs to give himself advice.

I should bring MY notebook! I do like drawing, even if it’s sometimes hard to stay still that long. Maybe then she’ll show me what she’s drawing. Or writing. 

Or feeling. Or thinking. 

She doesn’t talk much in the morning. She looks pretty mad at lunch. I lose our fifteenth game of tic tac toe at recess. 

She still doesn’t tell me to go away. 

And she doesn’t on Wednesday either. Or Thursday. 

On Friday I ask her if she wants some candy. 

I always keep some in my pencil case. Because you never know. 

I offer her a piece of liquorice. She takes it. 

The barest hint of a smile creeps across her face, and she says “You’re weird.”

But I can tell she doesn’t say that to be mean. “So are you,” I shrug, returning her compliment. 

I almost get a real smile out of her. 

I try to find her after school because now that we hung out all week, we should be best friends! I’ll find a better way to ask, maybe just see if I can get her last name so I can find her on the slap. 

Jacob only drives me TO school. I walk home FROM school. So I take my time to look for her...see if she’s getting picked up or taking the bus or what. 

She’s still inside, on the floor by the lockers. With her notebook. 

Maybe she walks too! And that’s why she’s not rushing to catch a bus or look for her ride. That’ll be nice unless we walk in different directions. 

“Hey, Jade!”

She doesn’t look up. The almost-smile from recess is gone. 

“What do you want?” 

“Just wondered if you wanted to walk home?” 

She’s angrier than she was before. 

And she lashes out. “Go away!” 

So I do. And I hope I still have a friend on Monday. 

When I see her again on Monday she looks exhausted.

And it scares me a lot. And it makes me think of Peter.

We make eye contact for a moment. She scowls at me but doesn’t say anything when I sit down. She doesn’t talk once all morning. 

At lunch, she’s just as quiet.

At recess, she asks me “Hey, do you think turtles have feelings?” 

I don’t think she really cares about the question. I think she just wants me to talk. 

So I do. But not about turtles. Who, obviously, have all the feelings. I talk about music and how it makes everything pink. I like pink. She doesn’t think it’s weird. Then I start humming that song that I still can’t remember. 

It goes like. Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmmmm hmmm. You know? But then, I don’t remember the words or any other part of the song, or the name. Maybe it was in a movie? I can’t tell for sure. I hum it again. 

“Why do you keep humming that?”Jade never sounds excited. Or interested. Or curious. Her voice is always flat so she always sounds so disinterested. Except obviously, she cares a little because otherwise, she wouldn’t be talking at all. People are so weird sometimes. 

“I’m trying to remember it.”

“Space Jam.”

“THANK YOU!” And now I can remember the whole song. And it WAS in a movie. So we talk about that for a bit. Or I do, anyway. Because it’s a really fun movie, and who would’ve thought that aliens would be able to take basketball players' talent. I wonder how that movie would be different if they were stealing, like, musical talent.

I talk all the way through recess. 

She shows me her notebook. 

It’s a drawing of aliens playing guitars. I ask if I can keep it. She shrugs, but tears out the drawing. It’s pretty good. 

On Tuesday, I ask if she’s okay.

She glares at me and tells me to “fuck off.”

On Wednesday she ignores me. 

And Thursday.

And Friday.

So we’re not meant to be friends, I guess.

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to give Cat a few brothers because of how the "my brother" statements are all so varied that I have a hard time believing it's all the same person. I've seen really good fics with it being just one brother and another fic where it's several (though I can't remember the name of it.) Anyway, hope you're on board with this controversial take, and that you liked the chapter. Let me know what you think, I always love to hear it!  
> Thanks again!  
> -Trashdove


End file.
